Prescription Drug Side Effects Hit 1 In 4

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Prescription Drug Side Effects Hit 1 In 4

By Gene Emery

4-17-3

 

BOSTON (Reuters) - Side effects from prescription medicines plague

one in four patients, and when they surface, most doctors fail to

act, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

 

The findings, from a study published in this week's New England

Journal of Medicine, sound an alarm to the millions of Americans who

take prescription drugs each year. Some 3.34 billion prescriptions

were dispensed in the United States in 2002, according to IMS

Health, a provider of pharmaceutical and health care data.

 

" It's a problem that is common, in many cases the impact could be

prevented or reduced, and it has a large impact on patients, " said

Tejal Gandhi, an internist at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston

and the chief author of the study.

 

Previous estimates have suggested that nearly 5 percent of hospital

admissions -- over 1 million per year -- are as a result of drug

side effects. But most of the cases are not documented.

 

The findings of the Gandhi team are based on prescriptions given to

1,202 adults in four outpatient clinics in Boston.

 

" They found that adverse drug events were fairly frequent and

usually mild, although potentially serious, and preventable events

were more frequent than any patient or clinician would like (or

should be willing to accept), " William Tierney of the Indiana

University School of Medicine said in an editorial.

 

Among the side effects, 13 percent were serious, such as low blood

pressure or internal bleeding, and 39 percent were preventable or

potentially treatable, such as cases where a drug was given to a

patient known to be allergic to it.

 

In preventable cases, patients were given the wrong drug 45 percent

of the time, the wrong dose was prescribed in 10 percent of the

cases, and patients were told to take it too frequently 10 percent

of the time.

 

" A lot of problems were going on a long time that weren't being

fixed, either because the patients didn't tell the doctor or the

physicians didn't change the medication. That was what surprised

us, " Gandhi told Reuters.

 

In nearly two-thirds of the cases, the side effects persisted

because the doctor failed to heed the warning signs. Patients who

suffered in the remaining cases did so because they never told the

doctor about their symptoms.

 

Gandhi said the problem is important, in part, because side effects

may discourage patients from taking vital medicines, potentially

worsening their health.

 

Tierney said the medical community needs to use a variety of

techniques to reduce side effects, such as computer programs that

check doses or a system where patients are routinely interviewed

about possible drug-related symptoms while they wait for their

appointment.

 

" With these 10-minute appointments, it's hard for the doctor to get

into whether the symptoms are bothering the patients, " Gandhi said.

 

" In the absences of such efforts ... given the increasing number of

powerful drugs available to care for the aging population, the

problem will only get worse, " Tierney said.

 

The drugs that posed the greatest risk of side effects were the

serotonin-reuptake inhibitor class of antidepressants, the non-

steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs often given for joint pain, and

calcium-channel blockers used to treat high blood pressure.

 

Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited.